Thread of Memory
by WynterSky
Summary: The Uchiha discover Itachi's plan before he can put it into play and banish him to another world. Four years later 'Hide' is living a relatively normal life when a bunch of weirdos turn up, claiming that he's a ninja. *CANCELLED; CONTINUED IN "THREAD OF MEMORY REVAMP VERSION"*
1. Prologue

[A/N: It was the bunnies! I swear! I didn't mean to start anything else, but they tied me to my chair and forced me to type this! Really! But I hope you like it anyway!]

Prologue:

Itachi stared absently at the swift-flowing water of the river before tossing a small rock in. There was barely any splash as it sank into the water.

"Something on your mind, Itachi?" Shisui asked quietly.

Itachi shrugged but didn't answer. His troubles were nothing he could tell Shisui about, anyway.

Shisui had been such a faithful friend, even if the two of them had always been on separate paths: Shisui's for the clan, Itachi's for the village. It was the least Itachi could do to get it over with now and spare his cousin what would come later on.

Itachi threw another rock into the water for the sake of delaying the inevitable.

"Itachi..."

"I'm fine, Shisui," Itachi lied. "Really I am."

"Itachi, I'm sorry," Shisui said, gently putting his hand on Itachi's arm.

Itachi turned to look at him in confusion. He should be the one apologizing, but Shisui would never get to hear it—

The senbon whipped past his face almost too quickly for Itachi to realize that it had cut him. Shisui hadn't thrown it, Shisui was still right next to him, but his grip had transferred firmly to Itachi's wrist so that he couldn't dodge the next two senbon that struck him in the shoulder. Itachi's vision was already blurring by the time those struck; whatever drug or poison was being used worked very fast.

_And so now it's all come to nothing,_ he thought before everything went black.

...

Fugaku sighed as he looked down at the unconscious body of his eldest son. Itachi didn't look like a formidable ANBU agent as he lay on the tatami floor with his dark hair spilling out around him. He looked small and vulnerable and the worst thing about it was that in his current state he was.

"He is a traitor!" one of the elders was saying. "We must get rid of him before he can pose any further threat to us!"

Sadly, Fugaku had to agree to both statements. While he could hardly believe that his own son had become so completely Konoha's thrall that he would kill his own family just to settle matters between the Uchiha and the village, he couldn't deny the evidence that had been found about Itachi's mission.

"Very well," he agreed with a heavy heart. "But I have a better idea than just killing him."

He could at least offer his child this slight protection.

It took hours to prepare the seals, and by the time it was was almost complete it was dangerously close to the time Sasuke would arrive home from the Academy. While Fugaku knew that Sasuke would never be able to find his way to the secret Uchiha council chambers, he still needed time to think of a way to explain Itachi's disappearance.

As the last symbol was drawn, Fugaku gently pulled Itachi's Konoha headband off before carrying him over to the circle, stepping carefully to avoid any of the calligraphy. "You may begin," he said, setting Itachi down in the center of the circle. The boy didn't move at all, and Fugaku began to worry that something was really wrong with him before remembering that the drug wasn't supposed to wear off for more than twelve hours.

Fugaku didn't participate in the actual jutsu, claiming it was because he wanted to say he had nothing to do with Itachi vanishing without actually having to quite lie, but actually because he didn't want to help do this to his son.

It took a surprisingly short time: the gathered elders began to push their chakra into the seal, and white light began to fill the symbols. As the light reached Itachi's body, it wrapped slowly around him until Fugaku could no longer look for fear of being blinded. Then there was a bright flash and everything went back to the way it had been before except that Itachi was no longer there.

...

The boy opened his eyes slowly. His head ached horribly and he had the strangest notion that there was something important he needed to do. When he tried to sit up, he found that he didn't have the strength, so he lay where he was looking up at the sky. It was a brilliant blue with lots of fluffy clouds in it, just like the sky ought to have, but something seemed off.

His head still hurt, and he closed his eyes again hoping that would relieve the pain. He must have passed out again, because when he opened his eyes he could hear footsteps and voices approaching.

"Natsuko-nee-chan, how much further is it to the train station?" said one voice. It sounded like a small child.

"Just a couple minutes further...Eriko-chan, come back here!" the other voice said as pattering little footsteps approached where the boy lay. "You don't want to get dirty on your first day in a new school, do you?"

"But nee-chan, there's a boy by the road! Why's he by the road?"

"What?" The heavier footsteps of the older girl approached, and she set another child down as she stopped. "Oh goodness...Eriko-chan, Aimi-chan, you stay right there, understand?"

The boy opened his eyes again to see a brown-haired girl leaning over him, biting her lip in worry. "Are you okay?" she asked quickly as she saw he was awake. "Look, maybe you'd better not sit up," she said, although she slipped a supportive arm around his shoulders all the same. "Can I do anything for you? Can I call your parents? What's your name?"

The boy started to reply, then frowned in concentration. "I don't know," he whispered, suddenly panicky. "I don't remember—I don't remember _anything._"

[A/N: Nooooo I have started another Itachi AU! Whatever shall l do?]


	2. Chapter 1

[A/N: This fic has, like, the stupidest title ever. I'm sorry. There's probably 37 amnesia fics out there with the same title, and it doesn't match up too good with the rest of the story, but I couldn't really upload this as 'Untitled Concept 2' now could I? Also, there are OCs but they're not integral to the plot or anything.]

Chapter 1:

Four years later:

Hide's day started about the same as any other, at least since he could remember, anyway. He woke up gasping for breath and shoved the cat off his face. Bakeneko, satisfied that her human was awake, sat back and meowed insistently.

"All right, all right," Hide sighed. "Why can't you get Natsuko-nee-san to feed you?" While neither he or Natsuko were sure which one was older, it just seemed right to call her his older sister. She certainly had assumed that role ever since he'd been found lying in the road through the rice fields, even before he'd been sort-of adopted into her family. He'd been living in the same house with them ever since.

Quietly padding into the kitchen—Bakeneko woke up earlier than his mother and sisters and consequently, so did he—Hide filled a dish with dry cat food and set it in front of the cat as his eyes lit on the clock. It was almost seven-thirty in the morning, and for some reason that number seemed important. Today was Saturday, so it couldn't be school...

"Job!" he gasped before bolting out of the kitchen, forgetting that he had been being quiet. Today was the first time he'd been asked to work on a week-end and he had completely forgotten. Hide hated the occasional flashes of forgetfulness he had; they'd gotten him in trouble more than once.

He dressed in record time, drank a glass of orange juice, and dashed outside, not even bothering to buckle the straps on his helmet before starting his scooter and racing off down the country road.

"Sorry I'm late!" he called almost before he had stopped the scooter ten minutes later. "Akiyama-san, I'm so sorry," he continued as he ducked into the back of the little restaurant. "I kind of...forgot..."

The ramen chef shrugged amiably. "Don't worry, Hide-kun, I can let it go this once. Nobody wants ramen delivered this early, anyway. I actually wanted your help preparing before I open up."

Scrubbing pots, bowls, the counter, cooking utensils, and whatever else Akiyama-san thought of was hard work, but it was completely worth it because it gave Hide a certain extent of financial freedom. He'd been able to buy his scooter (which was admittedly somewhat decrepit) with his first few months' pay, which gave him a means of transportation as well.

After a few hours, Akiyama Ramen opened for business, so Itachi got to rest for a while and read his new economics book before his first delivery of the day. His acquaintances at school—he didn't exactly have any proper friends—thought he was strange for liking non-fiction, but Hide was strange in a lot of other aspects, too, so he didn't exactly care.

He didn't see much point in bothering with what had happened in the 1338th chapter of One Piece (or whatever it was on) anyway. The one fictional franchise he had any time for was Star Trek, which didn't do his Normal Highschool Student standing much good. Life was indeed hard for a Japanese Trekkie, which was part of the reason he had this job: someday he dreamed of going to an American Star Trek convention.

It wasn't too long before someone called in an order, so Hide put his book away, made sure the case of ramen was secured to the back of the scooter, and sped off.

Since Hide lived on the outskirts of a smallish farming town, he knew practically everyone, or could at least recognize them, so when he passed a man with silver hair, a olive cargo vest, and an orange book held in front of his face he was understandably a little confused.

Trying to pretend that everything was completely normal, Hide took a rather unconventional route to his delivery address so that he could pass the stranger again, driving a little more slowly this time.

Behind the white-haired man (who was obviously not old, due to his erect posture) there were three other, younger, strangers. Hide knew he hadn't seen them before because he was sure he would remember a little girl with pink hair.

_Maybe they're cosplayers, _he thought as he headed for his destination. Although he didn't pay much attention to anime, his younger sisters did, and he had sat through more episodes of Tokyo Mew Mew and similar things than he cared to think about. Lots of anime characters had pink hair, or oddly styled white, blond, or blue-black hair. Still, why on earth anyone would want to cosplay in the middle of nowhere was a bit beyond him.

When Hide passed them again on his second delivery he got even more confused. When he saw them during his third delivery he was frankly concerned, and by his fourth he was approaching Freaked Out.

"Akiyama-san," he said quietly when he returned, "I think I'm being followed."

"Newspaper people again?" the older man asked, topping a bowl of ramen with some green onions and sliced boiled egg before setting it in front of a customer.

"I don't think so," Hide said, "at least, they didn't have any cameras." The newspapers had mostly lost interest in him after the first six months after he had been found, although Hide still got the occasional generous offer for an interview, which he invariably refused no matter how tempting the money was. He liked his privacy and he intended to keep it.

"Well, if you think you should go home, I'll understand..." Akiyama-san said, but Hide shook his head.

"I'll be fine," he said, although he wasn't exactly sure this was true. Akiyama Ramen needed its delivery boy and he couldn't run out on a job he had promised to do. "I do have the scooter so I can go faster than them, anyway."

Over his next few deliveries, Hide pointedly did not look around, hoping that maybe if he didn't see them they'd go away.

_That was pretty stupid, _he decided later as he spotted the foursome yet again.

Finally, on his way back from another delivery, Hide decided he had had enough. Parking the scooter, he stalked angrily toward the little group he saw sitting on a park bench and started shouting. "Look, I don't know who you are and this isn't funny, so why are you...following...me?" he finished weakly.

They weren't there anymore. Hide knew they had been, but they couldn't possibly have gotten out of sight in the time he had taken to walk there. Was his mind playing tricks on him again? He'd never had hallucinations before, but he'd been told it was a possibility...

Sighing, Hide got back on the scooter. He didn't see the strangers again the rest of the day.

...

He didn't leave the house at all the next day, making up vague excuses when Natsuko, Eriko and Aimi tried to talk him into coming with them to fly the kites they'd gotten at a recent festival.

Star Trek was a small consolation for the solitude. Hide tried getting Bakeneko to sit with him, but the megalomaniac silver tabby was not in a mood to permit such behaviour and leaped out of his arms every time he picked her up.

"Are you sure you're all right, Hide-kun?" his mother (sort-of; obviously since he didn't remember whether he had any family he couldn't be adopted into hers legally, but she and her husband were his guardians and parental terminology was easier) asked after dinner. She had been away all day working with a client and looked terribly tired. Hide had heated up some leftovers; it was the least he could do. "Are you not feeling well? I know Tou-san's away again, but I can always call him if you think you're ill..."

Hide shook his head. "I'm fine, really. I just don't feel like going out, that's all. Don't worry about me, I haven't had any problems like that in years."

Mother looked a little relieved. "All right, then. You'd better feel like going out tomorrow, though," she added with an authoritative nod. "You can't miss school again so soon."

Hide sighed moodily after she had left the dining room. School was not one of the highlights of his life; it came very near to being the bane of his existence. He and Natsuko did go to a nice highschool (even if it was thirty minutes away by train) but being an amnesiac teenage genius, if he did say so himself, didn't do a whole lot for one's social life. Still, there was science club, which was fun since he got to blow things up, and economics club, which was fun because he got to plot how to take over the world, so things weren't all bad.

...

As he got up on Monday to Bakeneko smothering him yet again, Hide had the vain hope that there might have been freakishly unseasonal snows and he wouldn't have to go to school. There was, of course, no such luck, so he got his uniform on, ate breakfast, and walked with Natsuko to the station.

Even though he dreaded seeing the strangers because that would _prove_ they were stalking him, Hide couldn't help looking around for them out of curiosity. He didn't see them on the walk to the station, so he began to relax.

"Hey, Hide, are you feeling all right?" Natsuko asked as they boarded the train. "You've been acting funny ever since Saturday."

"It's nothing to worry about, Nee-san," Hide replied. "In fact, I'm feeling a lot better."

"Oh. Well, that's good then," Natsuko said. She had been the one who found Hide lying drugged by the side of the road four years ago, and she had assumed responsibility for him ever since. He liked it most of the time—it gave him a feeling of belonging, especially in the first few months when he'd been so bewildered with everything—but she could be a little smothering at times.

Eriko and Aimi looked up to him, and Hide considered them quite fun to play with when they didn't want to watch Precure at the same time he wanted to watch Star Trek. They had only been six back then, and hadn't exactly known what was going on when Hide was suddenly dumped into their lives. Luckily, they had liked the idea of having an older brother, and Hide had liked being an older brother.

Somehow he had the feeling he must have had siblings before he had lost his memory. It was strange, thinking that there might be someone out there missing you, even if you didn't know a thing about them or have any emotional attachment. Well, that wasn't true, he had a vague sort of longing, but for what he didn't know.

"We're here, Hide, so you can stop spacing out," Natsuko said, shaking him out of his reverie.

The doors of the train opened, and Hide braced himself for another day of school.

School went better than usual that day. In fact, Hide almost thought that it went pretty well. Natsuko left before he did, since their clubs were on different schedules. He stayed later than usual in science club, working on a new experiment. This one was turning funny colors, which it wasn't supposed to do, but at least it hadn't blown anything up like the last one had.

Almost all the other students had left by the time Hide was through, so he walked out the gate alone and turned in the direction of the station only to freeze as he spotted a very familiar olive vest, orange book, and spiky white hairstyle. The owner of these lowered the book from his face and Hide could see that he wore a blue mask which covered the lower half of his face and a slanted headband with some sort of symbol that covered most of the upper half.

"You've been following me!" Hide said accusingly, looking around to see if there was anyone in earshot should he call for help. Considering the state he'd been found in, one of many theories was that he had been kidnapped and he didn't want to repeat that experience if he had experienced it.

The white-haired man shrugged. "I assure you we had good reason. We'd like to talk to you."

[A/N: I am writing this for fun, so I hope you think it is fun, but I'm going to keep on whatever anybody thinks. It gets more interesting later on, I think. And yes, Hide is Itachi. I have a theory that the Uchiha are a whole lot less stoic if removed from their angsty home life.]


	3. Chapter 2

[A/N: Just to clarify, 'Naruto' the manga/anime does not exist in the Thread universe.]

Chapter 2:

"Oh really?" Hide said, trying to stall as he judged how to get past them to the station. "What abou—"

"Aniki!" Hide took a step back and almost overbalanced as the black-haired child suddenly pounced on him. "Aniki! I knew it, I knew we'd find you, I've missed you so much, we've been looking for years—" the boy looked up at Hide with a bright, eager smile, then paused. "Aniki?" he queried, the eagerness and the smile vanishing. "Aniki, it's me. Don't you remember me?"

Hide looked down at the boy, racking his mind for the slightest shred of recognition or emotional connection. He didn't come up with anything.

Sighing, Hide pulled the boy's hands away from his shirt. The kid was definitely a good actor, but Hide had had too many people pretending to be related to him to be easily fooled. "Look, I don't know you," he said. "You must be thinking of someone else."

"But—" the boy began to protest, then fell silent as the white-haired man made a small gesture.

"You might not know us, but we know you," he said, closing the orange book and fixing Hide with a serious gaze through his one visible eye.

Hide rolled his eyes. Whoever these people were, they hadn't thought this through very well. "Do you have any idea how many times that line has been used on me? I don't like people stalking me—" _especially wierd cosplayers,_he added mentally, "—and I'm not going to go along with whatever your scheme is, so why don't you take your little publicity stunt somewhere else? Besides, I have a train to catch," he added icily as he stalked past them, only to catch his shoe on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fall flat on his face. Recovering himself, he headed for the station as quickly as he could without actually running and forcing himself not to look back.

"Well, that could have gone better," a voice said from behind him, probably the other boy.

"Naruto!" a girl's voice shouted.

"Ow! Sakura-chan..."

Hide couldn't hear anymore after that, as he had gotten to far away and the bustle of the train station was drowning out any other sounds. After the train doors had shut, he glanced back at where the strangers had been; they hadn't vanished like the first time he'd confronted them, but were walking slowly in the other direction. Well, if they weren't taking the train, then they wouldn't be able to get back to town before Hide, so he could relax for a little while.

Natsuko was setting the table when Hide arrived home, and Eriko and Aimi were playing a game of Sorry on the floor. "There you are, Hide-kun," Natsuko said, sounding relieved. "You're not this late very often. Do you need something to eat before you head out again?"

"No, I'll be fine," Hide said. He didn't really feel like eating knowing that there were a bunch of stalkers after him, and if he did get hungry he could always have a bowl of ramen and have it taken out of his paycheck. Now, if only there were something he could do about his shadows...

Suddenly, he had a flash of brilliance. Or, while maybe not brilliance (as a genius he had high standards for this sort of thing), definitely a good idea. Dashing back to his room, he changed quickly before borrowing a ski hat of his father's. Pulling it down low over his eyes, Hide tucked his ponytail up inside so that he was sure it was secure.

"I'm leaving now," he said quickly as he passed through the dining room again on the way to the entrance. "Hopefully I'll be back before it's too late." Sometimes he could leave early if it was a slow day.

"Hide!" Natsuko called from the door as he started the scooter. "Hide, why are you dressed as Mr. Spock?"

"It's a disguise!" Hide shouted back as he gunned the engine and roared off. Unfortunately, his scooter was too old to actually 'roar' anywhere, so it was more of a putter, but Hide didn't care as long as he was sailing down the open road.

Luckily, Akiyama-san didn't comment on Hide's unusual choice of outfit. He was too busy to, as today was not panning out to be a slow day at all. Hide had to dash all over town for his deliveries, and even though the town wasn't very big, it was large enough that traversing it several times could be tiring. Still, he didn't see the strangers again and eventually began to think that they had lost interest when he had made it clear he wouldn't be tricked.

What Hide hoped would be one of his last deliveries of the day, as it was long past dark and he didn't like driving in town at night, took him into the business district to a couple of security guards on night shift. The delivery went well enough, but then he decided to take a shortcut through a narrow alley on the way back. The alley was only barely wide enough for the scooter, and by the time he noticed the wires strung across the other end it was too late for him to turn around.

So his clever disguise had failed. Of course, there really was only one scooter in town this held together with duct tape, and Akiyama Ramen only had one delivery boy, but at least_ he_ had been cosplaying for a_ reason_.

"What do you want?" Hide shouted at the seemingly empty air, trying to gun the scooter's engine menacingly. Whatever menace the engine's sound had ever had was long gone, however.

"We told you before," a now all-too-familiar voice said as the white-haired man dropped down in front of him. "We want to talk to you."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you," Hide retorted, although it didn't look like he had much choice as the three kids dropped down behind him. They didn't look like they'd let him just walk past them again, and was that a _knife_the pink-haired girl was holding? "But," he continued with a small shrug, "it looks like I'm stuck here 'till I give in, so okay. Talk. First off maybe you could try telling me who you people are, and where I come in."

"Look," the white-haired man began, "this may be a shock to you, but we know who you are."

"Yeah, sure. Last time I thought about it, eighteen people have already tried telling me that." Due to the not insignificant reward for Hide's true identity being discovered, numerous people had falsely claimed to be related to him over the years. Since Hide didn't want the next headline he appeared in to be 'Amnesiac Dead At Hands Of Supposed Relatives' he was always on guard when somebody tried to tell him they knew who he was. "You get originality points for the costumes, but you really needed to work on the dialogue a bit."

The white-haired man raised an eyebrow. "You would be one to be cynical about this, wouldn't you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hide demanded. "Who are you?"

"I am Hatake Kakashi, jounin of Konoha ninja village, ninja registration number 009720."

Hide stared. "Okay, I'll admit, that's a new one." _They're crazy! They're all crazy!_

"Now will you listen to us?" Kakashi asked.

Hide sighed, and turned off the scooter. "Fine, but I have a job so don't take too long about it."

"Sasuke's older brother disappeared several years ago," Kakashi began, indicating the dark-haired boy who had first accosted Hide. "Sasuke's been trying to find him ever since, so when he got a lead he asked us to help him. So, to make a long story short, it worked, we're here, and you're the person we're looking for...Uchiha Itachi."

Hide shook his head. "Really, that's a nice story, I guess, but I'm going to need baby pictures, recent pictures, birth certificate, school identification cards, medical records, and anything else that might concern me, and then maybe I'll start thinking about believing you."

"But Itachi—" Sasuke began, but Hide cut him off.

"Until then, my name is Takeda Hide. Now will you please get out of my way?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, we tried," he said with a sigh, unhooking the wires that barred the end of the alley and stepping out of the way.

Hide started the scooter and sped off without a backward glance. It was almost an hour before his heart stopped racing.

...

By the time he headed home that night, it was almost pitch dark and there was no one else on the road. Hide tried to convince himself that he hadn't been followed, but it was hard not to imagine an ambush in wait behind every bush.

"Are you all right, Hide-kun?" Natsuko asked, coming up behind him as he entered.

Hide could not conceal how startled he was at her approach. "S-sure, nee-san, I'm fine..." It would do no good to worry her, there was little she could do to help.

"Well, if you say so," Natsuko said. She was clearly not convinced, but Hide knew she wouldn't pry.

Hurrying into his room, Hide fished his cell phone out of his school backpack before shutting the door and dialing a number he hadn't used in months.

The phone was picked up after only two rings. "Hello? Who's calling?"

"Officer Hayashi?" Hide said. "This is Hide."

"Hide?" The voice on the other end sounded immediately more alert. "What's wrong?"

"People are following me again."

One of the reasons Hide especially liked the officer assigned to his case was because Hayashi never suggested that he might be paranoid or deluding himself. "All right. Who, when, and where?"

"It was a man with white hair, even though I don't think he was very old, and three kids. They tried to convince me I was the brother of one of the kids, but I don't think they had planned for what to do if I didn't believe them right away. They've been following me ever since Saturday, but they only tried to talk to me this afternoon and tonight; this afternoon as I was coming out of school and tonight while I was out delivering ramen." Hide had been questioned by the police a lot, due to his situation, so he had gotten pretty good at providing the information needed.

Hayashi sighed. "Well, I'll see if there's any information on whether anyone's inquired about you lately. Listen, you have my number on speed-dial, right?"

"Right."

"If you run into them again, keep them talking and dial me. I should be able to trace you and then we can take care of whoever it is now. Sound good?"

"Good enough for now," Hide said.

Hayashi hung up and Hide looked thoughtfully around the room. Ten minutes and lots of careful balancing later, he had a very satisfactory ninjas-breaking-in trap, if he did say so himself. Anyone trying to raise the window more than six inches would pull a wire attached to an old alarm clock, thereby setting it off, and if that didn't take care of things a bucket of water was meticulously set up to fall on anyone who climbed all the way through the window.

That done, Hide slept soundly.


	4. Chapter 3

[A/N: Something's wrong with the stats so I have no idea how many people have read this. Therefore, reviews are Yay.]

Chapter 3:

Hide's very interesting dream (involving the Enterprise, Romulans, and a large cargo of rubber chickens for some reason) was interrupted by a funny sort of ping sound. It wasn't all that abnormal of a sound to be expected while one was travelling at Warp 7, but then Bakeneko hissed and jumped on his face and Hide came fully awake, sitting up and dumping the cat to the floor.

"What the—"

The first thing he spotted, besides Bakeneko's furry gray rump, was a long, thin needle embedded in the wall above his nightstand. Following the probable trajectory of this, he saw his alarm wire hanging slack and a familiar dark-haired boy crouching in the open window. For a second Hide thought the boy's eyes were red, but then he blinked and they were dark so it had probably just been a trick of the light.

"How did you get in?" Hide asked, not very intelligently. Sasuke didn't reply, but dropped lightly into the room and silently handed him the bucket of water. Hide had thought he was about ten the first time he'd seen him, but now he could see that he was definitely too tall for that—more like twelve.

"You cut through a wire with an acupuncture needle," Hide said, trying to get his mind around that.

"Yes."

"You cut through a wire with _one_ acupuncture needle."

"Yes..." Sasuke was looking a bit puzzled now. "It's not anything much."

"Right," Hide said with a nervous laugh. "So I guess you're a ninja too, huh?"

Sasuke nodded, the action rustling his spiky hairstyle. "I wanted to talk to you, Aniki," he said, looking up at Hide with serious dark eyes.

Hide sighed, and motioned for Sasuke to sit down beside him on the bed. "I'm not your brother, you know."

"But you look just like him," Sasuke said insistently.

"Years and wishful thinking can do that," Hide pointed out. "You've mistaken lots of people for your brother, haven't you?"

After a few seconds, Sasuke nodded slowly.

"If you're that set on trying to convince me, go back to whatever you came from and find some pictures—maybe with both of us—and then we can talk some more."

Sasuke turned so that Hide couldn't see his face, and Hide took that opportunity to very quietly slip his cell phone off the nightstand. "I'd like to bring those things you said," Sasuke said softly, "But I don't know where they're kept, and if Otou-sama found out I was looking for you he'd be furious."

Hide frowned slightly. There had to be a story in here somewhere. "Why doesn't your father want you trying to find your brother?" he asked, flicking the cell phone open with the hand Sasuke couldn't see and starting to press buttons.

_At home get here NOW_

It wasn't a sterling example of punctuation but he had been in a hurry, Hide concluded as he sent the text message to Hayashi's number.

"I don't really know why," Sasuke was saying. "But after Itachi vanished he had all of his things boxed up and locked in the basement. He won't even talk to me about him; it's like he wants everyone to forget he existed. I don't get it, he used to hardly talk about anything else besides Itachi."

It was too late for the trains to be running, so Hide would have to give Officer Hayashi plenty of time. "Do you have any idea why your brother left?"

Sasuke shrugged. "All I know is that one day I came home from the Academy—"

"The Academy?" Hide interrupted curiously.

"Yes, the Ninja Academy," Sasuke repeated.

"You went to _ninja school,_" Hide said incredulously.

"Of course I did!" Sasuke said, sounding annoyed. "I'm not _stupid._"

"Right, I'm sorry, go on," Hide said quickly. Obviously he had struck a nerve, although he wasn't sure exactly what Sasuke was so touchy about.

"Anyway, one day I came home from the Academy and Itachi wasn't there, and he never came back. He didn't leave a note, or anything, he just left. And so I've been trying to find him...to prove I'm not useless."

"What?" Hide was starting to feel a bit sorry for Sasuke; whatever situation the kid was in it sounded like a mess.

"Well," Sasuke continued, "some people...a lot of people, actually...say that he left because I was a bother to him. They don't say it when I'm around, but I know they say it. And Itachi was avoiding me for weeks before he left."

Hide sighed, tucking the cell phone into a fold in the blankets. "Look, I'm going to close the window, okay? It's freezing in here now."

Sasuke let him close the window, and either didn't notice when he locked it or chose not to say anything. That was a bit strange, especially since the boy claimed to be a ninja. Sasuke had already said he wasn't stupid (and Hide fully believed him) so he probably just thought that he could trust Hide as much as he had trusted his elder brother.

Hide felt a bit guilty for the fact that he was about to prove him wrong. "If that's how it is, I don't see why you're going to all this trouble," he said. "Frankly, he kind of sounds like a jerk."

"Don't say that about Nii-san!" Sasuke snapped, bolting upright with his hands tightening into fists.

"As an impartial observer, I think I can say what I want based on what I've heard," Hide said calmly. "I wouldn't think very highly of myself if I abandoned my younger siblings."

"You don't understand," Sasuke said, relaxing a bit. Hide could just hear a car stop outside the house, and hoped Sasuke would keep talking and not notice. "He wasn't always like that. He used to be _wonderful._ But then he got too busy, and after that it was like he didn't even want to look at me, and I don't know what I did wrong!"

The sound of the front door opening was unfortunately unmistakeable, and Sasuke froze, his eyes widening as he turned on Hide accusingly. "You tricked me!"

Hide grabbed for Sasuke's wrist before the boy could get out through the window again, and was quite surprised that he actually succeeded. "No I didn't. Didn't your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers?"

"But you're not—let me go!"

"Officer Hayashi, back here!" Hide called quietly as he heard the man's footsteps heading through the house. If his family was still asleep he would prefer that they stayed that way; there was a reason Hide slept in the far end of the house.

"You're lucky I have a key to your house," Hayashi said as he pushed open the door of the bedroom. "You're also lucky that this wasn't a false alarm; my wife was not pleased when I had to run out on her at three in the morning. Who's this, one of the people who were following you before?"

Sasuke was staring at the gun Hayashi held, his head tilted to one side and a slightly perplexed expression on his face. _He's never seen a gun before,_ Hide suddenly realized. _Where on earth could he be from, if he's never seen a gun before?_ Then he had another thought. _He doesn't know it can hurt him what if he tries to get away?_

"Hide?"

"Oh! Right, yes, he is. Sorry," Hide said. Luckily, Sasuke didn't fight back, although he glared bitterly at Hide as Hayashi put him in handcuffs. "Look, Sasuke, I'm sorry," Hide began, "But I'm really not the person you're looking for, and you _did_ break into my house."

Sasuke did not reply, and refused to look at Hide again as Hayashi escorted him out to the police car waiting in the road.

After the car had driven off, Hide closed and locked the front door and headed back to his bedroom.

"Nii-san?"

Hide stopped and turned to see Aimi standing in the door of her and Eriko's room, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "Imouto-chan. How long have you been awake?"

"Only just now," Aimi said with a yawn. "What was Hayashi-san doing here again?"

"That's not important," Hide said. Everyone would panic if they found out someone had broken in, and he doubted it would happen again. "Everything's fine now. You should go back to sleep, you have school tomorrow."

"Okay. Goodnight, nii-san."

"Goodnight," Hide echoed, patting her gently on the head before hurrying back to his own room. Things were still pretty much in order there, and once he had reset the trap (splicing the wires back together) and hidden the needle that had been embedded in the wall, no evidence was left that anyone besides Hide had been in there.

...

The next day, Hide left school right away; he didn't have anything to do in any of his clubs and he didn't want to be caught alone again. "Natsuko," he said as they approached the train station, "I have to run an errand, okay? I'll be home after you."

"Sure," Natsuko said. "Just don't forget about your job, okay?"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to forget," Hide assured her before she had to board her train.

It had been some time since he'd been to the police station, and the first time he'd gone there by himself, but Hide would never forget the way there. After he had been first let out of the hospital, a couple of weeks after he had been found, he had practically lived there as the police force attempted to find every possible clue to his identity. Since then, he had still gone there fairly often so they could bring him up to date on the latest breakthroughs. There hadn't been any breakthroughs for almost a year, though, and he knew that they had probably given up hope by now.

That didn't prevent them from welcoming him, though. "Hide-kun!" the receptionist greeted him, getting up from her chair to hug him. "I haven't seen you in months, how are you?"

"About as good as I can be," Hide replied after he had been released. "Is Hayashi here?"

"He was off on break, but he's just coming in behind you. Hayashi-san!" she called, waving to get the officer's attention, "Hide wants to talk to you!"

"So, Hide, what can I do for you?" Hayashi asked as they walked back to his office. "Let me guess; this is about last night?"

Hide nodded. "Has he told you anything?"

"Nothing helpful," Hayashi replied. "Just that his name is Uchiha Sasuke—and apparently he expected us to recognize the name, even though none of us did—and he comes from a place called Konoha. Either it's a very, very small town or it's not in Japan, because nobody's been able to find it on a map yet."

_Well, I'm willing to bet it's not in Japan..._ "What are you going to do with him?"

"We're not sure yet," Hayashi said with a small shrug. "He doesn't have any criminal record, and he wouldn't tell us how to contact his parents or the people he was with."

"I think you should just let him go," Hide said.

Hayashi frowned. "What?"

"I don't want to press charges or anything, since I somehow miraculously managed to keep Mother from finding out that he broke into the house and I'd like to keep it that way, and besides I don't think he meant any harm. He just wanted to talk to me; I don't think he was trying to trick me, he really did think I was his brother. Please?" Hide clasped his hands and looked up at the officer with his best pleading face, the one that always worked on his father.

Hayashi sighed. "I don't like it, but I don't see what else we can do. Besides, maybe we can follow him and find the others."

Hide hadn't thought of that, but he wasn't about to let Hayashi know that. "See, you know I'm right."

"Sure, sure, now get out of here, don't you have a part-time job?"


	5. Chapter 4

[A/N: I thought I might as well confess that a great deal of this fic was born out of an intense desire to see Itachi dressed as Spock and a heavy chocolate overdose. I don't think that's a bad thing, though.]

Chapter 4:

Hide's delivery job started out very well that evening, as he didn't catch sight of the 'ninjas' anywhere. Hopefully they had figured out, after Hide had gotten the police involved, that he wasn't one to be easily deceived. In any case, even though he was looking for them now, they were nowhere to be found. He almost thought that he could have imagined the whole thing, if it wasn't for the needle-hole he still needed to patch up in his bedroom wall.

Things weren't nearly as busy as the day before, so Hide actually had some time to sit and read between deliveries, although he had trouble keeping his mind on the book. Machiavelli just wasn't holding his attention today.

He hoped Sasuke was all right; what Hide had done probably hadn't been especially fair, but he had to get his point across somehow. Besides, if the boy had been acting like that with everyone he thought might be his brother he would have gotten himself in worse trouble sooner or later. Sasuke was surprisingly trusting for a ninja.

That Hide hadn't seen the ninjas today was probably a good sign, though. Sasuke had probably found his way back to them after Hayashi let him go (Hide had doubts that any police tail would be able to follow Sasuke successfully, he and his friends were frighteningly sneaky) and they'd headed back to wherever it was that they belonged.

Where was 'Konoha', anyway? Hayashi had said it wasn't in Japan, and from the way the ninjas had been acting it had to be very remote. Maybe it was in Tibet somewhere, or elsewhere in the Himalayas. There were lots of places in there that were nearly impossible to get to. But those places were just as hard to get out of, so how would the ninjas have gotten to Japan from there?

"Hide-kun, delivery."

Hide was so busy puzzling over this question that it took him a little while to register that someone was talking to him. "Sorry, Akiyama-san," he said quickly, closing the book (he hadn't been actually looking at it for several minutes, anyway) and putting it away. Akiyama-san could have fired him for being spacey long ago, but luckily the man was understanding about what came with hiring an amnesiac. "Where to?" Hide asked, straightening the sleeves of his Science Officer uniform before taking the box of ramen and fastening it into the basket on the back of his scooter.

"The new apartments on the east side of town. Here's the address."

Hide didn't look at the piece of paper before putting it in his pocket; he only needed it for the apartment number and he could get it out again when he arrived. "Right then, the fastest ramen in town is on its way!"

It got dark quickly this time of year, and it was getting steadily duskier as Hide pulled up in front of the apartment building. Taking out the piece of paper with the address, he sighed as he realized that he was going to have to walk all the way up to the sixth story. By the time he finally arrived at what he realized was the most remote apartment in the building he was out of breath, so he leaned against the walkway railing for a moment before ringing the doorbell.

"Delivery, Akiyama Ramen!"

There was a sudden bustle of activity from inside the apartment, but the door wasn't opened for several seconds. Hide was beginning to worry that this was another plot of the stalker ninjas when the door finally opened. He almost sighed with relief when he saw a red-haired teenager.

"I brought your—" Hide began, but he didn't have time to finish the statement before a blond teenager shoved past the redhead to grab the box with the ramen in it.

"Deidara..." the redhead said in annoyance.

"But Sasori, I'm_ hungry!_" Deidara protested.

Sasori sighed. "How much?" he asked.

"1200 yen," Hide replied. As Sasori got out the money, Hide looked past him into the apartment. Deidara had gotten both bowls of ramen out by now, which was normal. What was Absolutely Not Normal was the tongue that slipped out of Deidara's hand to lap at the broth.

"Ow ow hot hot hot!" Deidara yelped, dashing into what must have been the kitchen, because Hide could hear water running a moment later.

"Of course it's hot, idiot," Sasori mumbled, pulling out a few bills.

Hide had a very bad feeling about this. "Right, I'll just be going now," he said as he took the money, smiling innocently and hoping they hadn't noticed him staring, "so, Live Long and Prosper, and—um. That's a gun."

"I know what it is," Sasori said calmly, not lowering the pistol from where it was pointed at Hide's head. "I also know how it works. Now get inside and be quiet."

Since this seemed to be the best option at the time, Hide complied (especially since he didn't want Sasori to remember the ramen money and take it back). However, he'd never been able to keep quiet for long. "You do realize kidnapping is illegal in Japan, right?" he said as the door closed behind him.

"I'm well aware of that," Sasori replied.

"So...are you two ninjas too, or something?"

"Be quiet."

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"Shut up or I'll gag you."

Apparently Sasori was not the type to be easily shaken by back-talking kidnappees. Hide obediently sat down on the couch that he was directed to and tried to look nervous while keeping a close eye on what was going on. If Sasori looked away for even a moment, he might be able to get his cell phone out and dial Officer Hayashi before they realized what he was up to.

"What do you want me for?" Hide asked after a few minutes, as nothing seemed to be happening, except that Deidara was almost done with the ramen. Sasori hadn't eaten any.

"Don't play stupid," Sasori retorted. "Your adoring little brother led us right to you."

Hide's bad feeling got worse. "Look, I'm not this Itachi person."

"Funny how quickly Team 7 found you then. They seemed awfully certain who you were."

Team 7 must refer to the group of ninjas that had been following him around, Hide thought, filing that bit of information away for later. He tried another line of reasoning. "I have friends with the police, you know. You won't get away with this; let me go now and maybe I'll try to get you let off with a lighter sentence."

"I assure you," Sasori said evenly, raising one eyebrow (Hide promptly decided he hated him; he'd never been able to do that even when he practiced), "where we're going, the police will not be an issue. Hurry up, Deidara, we're wasting time," he added in almost exactly the same tone.

"Just finished," Deidara said.

"Very well then."

By the time Hide realized that Sasori had just thrown a dagger at him, it had already sliced a thin cut in his arm and embedded itself in the couch behind him. That was not something Hide was going to take meekly.

"Do you know what you just did?" Hide exploded, jumping to his feet. "That Starfleet uniform was expensive! Do you have any idea how—h-how long—I—" Hide couldn't manage to make himself finish the sentence. The room was starting to get blurry and his head was spinning. _Maybe I should have stayed sitting down,_he thought just before he hit the floor.

...

Hide woke up an unknown amount of time later, and immediately wished he hadn't—and not just because of the headache.

His legs weren't there. Or rather, he was pretty sure they were there, as he could see their silhouette through the white light creeping up his body, but he couldn't feel them at all, just a strange dull coldness. His hands were also tied, which didn't improve the situation any.

Taking a split second to look around and try to figure out what was going on and if there was any way to stop it, Hide saw that he was somewhere dark and spacious—a warehouse?—and lying on some kind of elaborate circle, like something out of Fullmetal Alchemist.

One thing quickly learned by anybody who ever watched Fullmetal Alchemist was that ending up on a circle made of strange mystic symbols was a Very Bad Thing.

"What's going on?" Hide demanded in a shaky voice, trying to push himself up as he caught sight of Sasori kneeling by the circle, Deidara at his side. "What are you doing—stop it!"

Then a band of white light wrapped over his face and he couldn't see or hear anything else. That was the worst, feeling the coldness coming and not being able to tell what was going on. Even if he couldn't do anything about it, being able to see would have given him some sort of edge over his rising panic, and that wold have allowed him to pretend that he had some modicum of control.

What Hide hated and feared most was not being in control. Even when he was at school and kept to the background, he knew that if he really needed to, he could get things done.

This, on the other hand, was entirely alien, he didn't have any control and he never would, and pretty soon they would realize that he wasn't who they wanted him to be and then he would die.

Hide wasn't really a pessimist, but sometimes one had to make the logical realization, and right now that happened to be that he was kind of doomed.

Finally, the white light disappeared and Hide found himself lying on a cold stone floor. As he caught his breath and waited for his circulation to go back to normal, Sasori and Deidara appeared through what Hide assumed was the same mechanism.

"Let's go," Sasori said calmly, and Hide wondered randomly if he ever used any other tone. "The Leader's waiting for us."

[A/N: I apologize for the short chapter; I didn't feel like it would be a good idea to pad it out, and I think plot-wise the next bit fits better in the succeeding chapter anyway.]


	6. Chapter 5

[A/N: Hey everybody, I'm really sorry this chapter took so long to finish. College started up again and it's been a real drag. Also, I'm going to re-post edited versions of the earlier chapters soon, and some of the edits will be important to the story.]

Chapter 5:

During the short time it took for Deidara and Sasori to haul him down a cramped stone passageway that appeared to belong to a very cliche Evil Lair, Hide started to get his plotting gears in motion. He didn't have a whole lot to go on right now, but perhaps when he got a look at their 'Leader' he'd be able to come up with something. This 'Uchiha Itachi' was obviously someone important; maybe he should stop protesting that he was someone else, it might keep him alive longer.

He didn't have anything remotely resembling a weapon except his keys (which he was loath to risk harming since they were attached to an exclusive USS Enterprise keychain), so he'd have to get out of here using his wits. Sasori was not the type to fall for any trickery, but Deidara seemed more gullible. Hide's success or failure—and subsequent death or survival—would be decided by whoever else he was about to meet as Sasori opened a door at the end of the corridor.

On an initial impression, his chances didn't look very good. Even though the leader of his captors wasn't exactly the most intimidating type physically, Hide knew that wasn't all that mattered. Deidara and Sasori were behaving with deference tempered with a little nervousness, so there had to be more than met the eye here.

"Pein-sama," Sasori said curtly, pushing Hide to the floor in front of Pein's chair. What kind of a name was that, anyway? It did seem somewhat fitting, given how many piercings the man had, but honestly this whole thing seemed like something out of Shonen Jump. "We found Uchiha Itachi."

Hide didn't contest this statement. While he didn't put this ability into play very often, he could shut up when he thought it was necessary.

"Very good," Pein said. "What of the shinobi from Konoha?"

"They were no trouble," Sasori replied. "They did not wish to use force to retrieve him; I doubt they've even realized he's gone yet."

Pein nodded, and then Hide barely had enough time to notice before a handful of needles were hurled at him. He was already on the floor, so he just rolled over and curled up in a ball so they wouldn't hit anything terribly vital (kidneys were nice things, Hide really wanted to keep his). Perhaps Pein hadn't really been meaning to hurt him, since of the few needles that actually reached him, none did much more than put more holes in his Starfleet shirt.

By this point, Hide had had quite enough of shutting up. "What is this, 'Throw Pointy Things at Hide Week'?" he demanded, uncurling and pushing himself into a kneeling position. "What's going on here, anyway—hey, stop that!" he cut himself off as Pein walked silently over and grabbed his hair, forcing his head back so they were looking in each other's eyes.

"No Sharingan," Pein said finally, releasing Hide and standing up.

"Um...is that something I'm supposed to care about?" Hide asked, yet again wondering what the point of all this was.

"I should think so," Pein replied, "as you are now of no further use to us."

"Can I have him when you're through?" Sasori asked in a bored tone.

"If you like."

"Hey, hey, wait, let's think about this economically!" Hide said quickly as Pein pulled out a dagger. "Sure, if you get rid of me now you save the trouble of making sure I don't escape, but on the other hand you incur the opportunity cost of any information I might hypothetically have been able to tell you. I mean, shouldn't you think this over for a moment, or something?"

He hadn't been expecting his little spiel to work and therefore had been rather less than coherent, but to his surprise and immense relief Pein relaxed slightly and put away the dagger. Before he had more than a few seconds to rejoice in his good fortune, however, Pein gestured toward his subordinates and Sasori grabbed Itachi by the arm, dragging him roughly to his feet.

Hide winced a little as his shoulder twisted in a way he was pretty sure it wasn't intended to under normal circumstances, but kept quiet as Sasori pulled him out of the room and along another twisting series of corridors. Sasori wanted him dead for some purpose (nothing pleasant, Hide was certain) and Hide wasn't about to give him any excuses.

Sasori said nothing until he finally shoved Hide into a small cell. "Don't think you've gotten off," he said, his voice surprisingly calm and mild considering the subject matter. "I can afford to wait."

On that cheerful note, Sasori slammed the door and locked in, and Hide was left alone in the dark as he heard a key turn and Sasori's footsteps recede down the corridor.

"Well," Hide mused to himself, once he couldn't hear the footsteps anymore, "this is a mess, isn't it."

While he had managed to save himself for now, Sasori did appear to be right; Hide had only put off his eventual fate, which was looking darker and darker by the minute. Despite his bluff, he had no information he could give, which Pein was sure to find out very quickly. Once he did, there was no way Hide could get away—even if he could get out of this cell, he had no clue which way led out of the cave complex.

Just for the sake of something to do, Hide pulled his keys out of his pocket (with some difficulty, but fortunately his pants weren't tight) and set to work trying to fray through the ropes around his wrists. It wouldn't do him that much good even if he succeeded, but at least he wouldn't feel quite so helpless. And if he did get loose, maybe he would be able to think of something.

Some time later, he had made very little progress. He had managed to wear through a few strands, but the keys were becoming dull and Hide doubted that they would be good much longer. If he ever made it back, he would have to find his spare set of keys, wherever they had got to. This set probably wouldn't even work to start his scooter anymore.

As he pondered these cheery thoughts, Hide heard footsteps coming down the corridor again. Before he could decide what he was going to do about this (not that he had a whole lot of options in his current situation), the door opened. Hide's tension abated slightly when he saw that his visitor was neither Pein nor Sasori, but the blonde, Deidara. It probably wasn't much of an improvement, but at least Deidara hadn't expressed a desire to kill him yet. "What do you want?" Hide asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He didn't fail all that miserably.

"I want to make a deal with you," Deidara replied.

Hide was a little confused at this, considering the fact that he had next to nothing to bargain with. "What sort of a deal?"

"Well," Deidara began, closing the cell door behind him and stepping to one side so that he could not be seen from the corridor, "I don't care so much for this line of work. I'm mostly a freelancer, but anyway, you're supposed to be a really powerful ninja, right?"

"I wouldn't know," Hide cut in. He sort of liked the way this was going, but he wasn't going to enter into a bargain unless he had some hope of keeping up his end.

In any case, Deidara disregarded this remark and continued. "So, what I want is, if I get you out of here, then we go into partnership—watch each other's backs, you know?"

"I guess," Hide said, not wanting to give a direct reply just yet. He knew next to nothing about Deidara, except that he worked with Sasori. This was not a good point. However, if he didn't like working with Sasori, those things cancelled each other out and he didn't know much more than before.

"Great!" Deidara said, clapping his hands cheerfully. "Let's go th—that door locked behind me, didn't it."

As Deidara messed with the door, Itachi took the opportunity to study his guest from the small amount of light coming in through the windor in the door. He was younger than Hide had assumed on first glance, maybe even younger than Hide himself. What had made Hide think he was older was his casual attitude about the sort of things Deidara and Sasori were up to. From the sound of it, Deidara had been working as a ninja for quite a while, making Hide wonder when he must have started out.

"So, this partnership," Hide ventured after a few minutes. "What would it entail?"

"I don't know," Deidara said absently, licking at the lock with the tongue in his right hand. "I just want out of here, and didn't like the idea of going alone. You should probably back up a bit."

Taking Deidara's words and casual tone at face value, Hide only backed up a few feet and was therefore thrown to the ground when the entire door—and a good bit of the surrounding wall—blew up.

Hide stared in some shock at the hole remaining as he climbed to his feet. "Was that...supposed to happen?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Come on, let's go!" Deidara responded, dashing out the door and down the corridor with Hide close behind.

"You do realize that everybody here knows what you just did, right?" Hide asked breathlessly as Deidara paused at an intersection.

"Not really, un," Deidara replied carelessly. "They kind of expect that sort of stuff from me by now."

That fact was slightly disturbing but had the potential to be a lot of fun later, and Hide made a mental note to take full advantage of it. But there was one thing he needed to take care of first. "And that I'm still tied up?" he inquired.

"Oops," Deidara said sheepishly, pulling out a kunai (Hide had seen enough ninja movies to know what it was called) and handing it to him. "Forgot about that. Here, this way."

[A/N: Not sure this is my best work, but it'll pick up a bit after this. I love sticking Deidara and Itachi together, they make a good duo. Pity they hate each other in canon.]


	7. Important Announcement

Hello everyone!

This isn't an update, but I do have good news!

Thread of Memory is being uploaded in its expanded, edited version. You can find it in my profile, titled "Thread of Memory Revamp Version". I'm leaving this version here so I can play spot-the-difference.

Thanks for reading, everybody!

(I might delete this announcement after I think it's been long enough for everyone to see it.)


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